Aquene
by Sakura Kim
Summary: Shuichi is a royal princess! In order to save his life, his mother and midwife disguised him as a girl and he doesn't know that he is a he and neither does Prince Taki, who wants his body. Aquene is a land full of darkness but can a little snow shed som


**Aquene **

By Sakura Kim

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that I want to, including the Gravitation characters in this little story, though they are all going to be OOC, so maybe I'm just borrowing names? Whatever.

A.N. OK, so the intro's going to be a bit boring...and blunt, but hey, it's the intro, give me a little slack. It's going to start off like a fairy tale, then it'll turn into a normal story, I hope...it's already started to get away from me.

Aquene means peace ... by the way.

On with the story...

* * *

In the land of Aquene, all was not peaceful. When the beloved ruling of King Haru was cut short by his murder at the hands of his jealous brother, Prince Taki, Aquene found that it would never be the same. 

The prophecy predicted in years past, "When Spring is cut short, darkness will fall upon the land," had come true.

This lush green land was turned into a desert and what had once been a land full of laughter and light, all that remained was sorrow and darkness. The now King Taki had made that happen in simply a month since the murder of his brother. Oh how the people mourned.

The rest of the prophecy stated, "Only the son of Spring can marry the Snow and revive the land to its original luster."

King Taki had made sure to kill off all of his brother's heirs, leaving only the women and daughters behind – to serve him and his son, Prince Taki, in bed.

But King Taki had been careless, for on the night after all of the crown princes' murders, King Haru's wife gave birth.

----

A woman was in labor on a canopy bed, clutching the bedding for dear life while her midwife was concentrated on the babe coming from between the woman's legs.

"Just a little bit more," the midwife called out to the woman.

The woman gave one last push with an "Aaaargh!" and the baby's first cries could be heard. Panting for dear life, the woman rested for a moment before reaching her arms towards the midwife, demanding her baby.

The midwife cut the umbilical cord and cleaned off the babe, her face becoming sterner by the second, before handing the babe to its mother, wrapped in fresh cloth.

"What is the matter?" the woman demanded of the midwife, panic taking over her complexion as she accepted the babe. She quickly examined the body parts sticking out of the wrappings but could not find anything wrong. Relief flooded her face before a sudden realization hit her. She opened the wrappings and saw what she had feared, a penis.

Weeping, the woman clutched the babe to her, earning cries of protest from him. "No! I refuse! I don't want to part with my baby! Not so soon! Not after losing all of my other children! Not the last memory of my husband!" She broke down sobbing.

Taking the baby away from his distressed mother, the midwife had a sorrowful look on her face. "I wish there was a way to save him, if only he was a girl." Then a light bulb lit above the midwife's head. "He is a girl."

Snapping, the mother glared at the midwife. "What nonsense are you spouting, woman! I'm going to lose my only living son and you're going on about crazy matters! Have you finally snapped?"

"We shall say that he was born a female, then he shall not have to be killed." The midwife explained to the mother.

"That plan will fail miserably with more suffering than if we were to give him up now. Oh, my poor baby." The mother broke down in sobs again.

"Oh, but you see, it will work, we'll make it work." The midwife gave the mother a sly look.

The mother looked up at her, wiped away her tears, and demanded one simple thing, "Explain."

"You see, it is not strange for the midwife and mother to raise a daughter closely in our country, is it? And so, as long as we're extra careful…" and so their planning went late into the night, the final protest from the mother being a very logical one, "What happens when either Taki wants to bed him?"

The midwife's response however, was not as logical. "Hopefully, by then the prophecy will have been fulfilled or we will have to somehow get a sympathetic ally to agree to marry him. Either way, we'll get to that bridge when we get to it." And the mother, grasping at any chance of her baby being able to live, agreed to it and the final decisions were made.

The babe's real, yet forbidden, name would be Shuichi. But until Aquene's restoration, he would be known as Haruko, for he is the child of Spring, destined to revive the land with his sunny demeanor, as the products of spring revive the land from its wintry slumber.

* * *

Haruko, -_sigh_- what a name, but it does its job. It means "the child of spring" or "sunny child" just in case the sunny hint didn't make sense. 


End file.
